Mother and Son
by elledottore
Summary: Liir pressures his mother into finally having an open conversation with him. Bookverse. AU-ish.


**So, this is my first venture into bookverse. I've always wanted to try it, but I never thought I could do Gregory Maguire justice. For those of you who haven't read the book (you should; it's amazing!), I should warn you that it is** ** _quite_** **different from the musical. Elphaba is less of a charismatic Animal rights activist, and more of a mentally damaged insurrectionist who's hellbent on not having a soul and getting forgiveness from Sarima, Fiyero's widow. Yeah, it's an intense novel. But still a good read.**

 **Enjoy!**

Mother and Son

One Shot

A typical way for Ozian boys to complain about their mothers was to compare their mothers to the Wicked Witch of the West. And for most Ozian boys, this was a very melodramatic statement, something they would feel awful about when they were older. But for one Liir Ko, this statement was his reality. And you would think that having the Wicked Witch for a mother would be absolute hell, but Liir's mother had never laid a hand on him. She had also never shown him any sign of affection, and Liir had in fact learned that she was his mother from her old Nanny (this caused the Witch not to speak to Nanny for weeks), but she was mostly indifferent to the boy.

One day, Elphaba was busy attaching wings to one of the newborn snow monkeys that she had brought to Kiamo Ko, when Liir came into her room, in a rare attempt at mother-son bonding. "Hey Mom," he said cheerfully, really taking his chances. "Whatcha doin'?"

Elphaba scowled; she absolutely hated it when he called her "Mom." He sounded like an upper class Gilikinese boy. "I'm making biscuits; what does it look like I'm doing?" she snapped, not even looking up from her work. "What do you want?"

"Um … not much. Do you need any help with your little … operation?"

"No, I do not. And if Nanny sent you up here, you can tell her that I don't need useless boys to help me with such delicate procedures as this."

"Nanny didn't send me," Liir said, hurt. "I came here on my own. 'Cause I wanted to see what you were up to, that's all."

"Well, congratulations, you've seen it. Now can you please go before the anesthetic wears off?"

"Sure." Liir turned to go but then thought of something. "Mom?"

"Mmm?"

"Who was my father?"

Elphaba was so shocked by this question that she nearly impaled the monkey she was operating on. "What kind of a damn fool question is that, Liir?"

"You never talk about him, and I assume I wasn't immaculately conceived," Liir said tartly. "So who was he?"

"None of your business," Elphaba said quickly, putting the final stitches on the newborn monkey.

"It's none of my business who my own father was?! That makes absolutely no sense!"

"It was a crazy time in my life that I don't want my idiotic adolescent son to know about. And this is the last time we are discussing this. Understood?"

Liir sighed heavily. "Fine. Can I go to Red Windmill after dinner?"

Elphaba pretended to consider this for a moment. "No."

"Why not?" he whined.

"First of all, I do NOT like that tone of voice you just used, young man. Second, you know perfectly well why I don't want you going down there."

Another heavy sigh. "I know, I know, too dangerous, they could discover who I am, blah blah blah. Except they won't! They don't know you're my mother, they don't know where I live, they don't even know my real name! I use the name Boq, after your old school friend."

"Oh, genius, 'Boq,' a Munchkinlander name. What are they going to think about 'Boq' never seeming to go home?"

"They're dumb soldiers! They don't notice!"

"They're the Wizard's men, Liir, you imbecile! If they knew who you were, they could hold you for ransom to get me to do … something! I can't even imagine what!"

"Ugh! They're my friends! Why do you always have to imagine the worst possible scenario?"

"Because your father always imagined the best possible scenario and it got him slaughtered by the Gale Force," Elphaba said, her voice calmer now. It was one of the rare times she had let her mask drop in front of Liir. It caught him very much off guard.

"Who was he, Mom?" he asked gently. "Or if you can't bear to tell me that, at least tell me _something_ about him. Did you two have any special places you would go? Did you have pet names for each other?"

She spoke so softly, he almost didn't hear her. "Fae. He called me Fae. His 'beautiful' Fae, as if I was. One time, he surprised me with six scarves, because he knew I loved scarves. He was stupidly optimistic, like you, but his looks made up for it. He _was_ extraordinarily handsome, something you, sadly, did not inherit."

Liir was able to ignore his mother's remark about his appearance; she was accustomed to verbally abusing him this way and he was accustomed to hearing it. "If he didn't look like me, what _did_ he look like?"

Elphaba smiled, almost forgetting who she was talking to. "He was far more handsome than any prince you could read about in a fairy story. And he didn't look at all like your typical 'Prince Charming.' He was dark skinned, which turned some heads in the EC, where we lived at the time, so I suppose that was one thing to which we could both relate." And then she _laughed_ a little, which was something Liir had _never_ seen her do. "Avaric had only _just_ stopped pestering me about whether I was half elf when your father came to Shiz."

"My father went to Shiz with you?" Liir asked, his mind already teeming with possibilities.

But just then, Elphaba remembered herself. "I've told you enough, boy! Go tell Nanny to start on dinner, and then clean your room! I was walking by it earlier today, and I saw it was a pigsty! Utterly disgusting!"

So Liir obeyed and went to find Nanny in her chambers. He helped her down the stairs since Chistery was preoccupied helping Elphaba with Lurline knew what. While Nanny made dinner, Liir told her about his interesting conversation with his mother. "But after all that, she _still_ won't tell me who he was!" Liir concluded angrily.

"But surely you must have guessed," Nanny said. "Or are you really that dull? Here." She pulled something out of her apron, a green glass bottle. "I found this in your mother's room the other day and thought it looked familiar. See what you make of it."

 **So, how was my first bookverse story? Did y'all enjoy it?**

 **Next chapter of Little Witch II coming soon!  
Thanks for reading!  
Cheers,**

 **Elle Dottore**


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